NYC ~ Day 3 ~ FAO Schwarz, Central Park Zoo and Times Square

The morning of Day Three found four of us in line at FAO Schwarz. Yes, another line. This one was about 15 minutes long, but they would have served the shoppers better by making us wait even longer. The store was so crowded when we were let in that we had to shuffle through and could hardly get close to the merchandise. We certainly didn't get the FAO experience that I had felt in past years. I did manage to get a new FAO Schwarz bear. Mine was eaten years ago by one of our dogs. I also got an Elmo book (which my daughter had to toss to me because we couldn't get back across the crowd to each other) and FAO Schwarz stuffed Moose for my nanny child. His birthday is right around the corner. 

The line to get in wrapped around the building. 

Eve loves the new bear, "Brownie York".

The FAO experience so wore Elijah out that he decided to skip our afternoon activity. My Mother also decided that she had no more walking in her. Later, Tim, dear husband, Rebekah and I went to the Central Park Zoo. This is a sweet little zoo. The animals are "exotic" but there aren't any large animals like lions. They did have some very sleepy grizzly bears. Our favorite areas were the Red Pandas (which were very active), the seals, bats, and the tropical bird aviary which we walked around in for a long time. 

We returned to the hotel and had a NYC hot dog and pizza picnic dinner from food trucks around our hotel. Then, Rebekah, Elijah and I headed out for our last night in NYC. We went back to Rockefeller Center and Saks Fifth Ave to take in the lights and then walked down to Times Square. The lights were great and the streets were crowded. We saw several street performers and enjoyed the hustle and bustle of Times Square. 

The police closed this street to traffic right as we got there.

Standing on a crossing island in the middle of the street. 

Rockefeller tree

Loved this church ~ St. Patrick's Cathedral

I love the way NYC mixes the old with the new. They do it very well.  We felt safe the entire time. The police were everywhere, and with good street smarts and careful precautions with our purses, nothing went wrong. We honestly felt safer in New York City than we do in our small little city of Asheville, which is extremely overrun with drug addicts and raving, mentally ill, homeless people. (My heart goes out to the homeless and we do try to help them, but many of them are scary due to their mental health issues.) We returned to our hotel for a good night's sleep. The next morning we went out for NYC bagels. The first place had more than an hour wait line, so we Googled and moved on to one deeper in a residential neighborhood. That one had a tiny line and was obviously a place frequented by locals. We got our bagels and packed up to head home. Everyone was so eager to get home after a wonderful, but exhausting trip. We ended up driving the entire 11 hours home and got home around 3 am.  

I will be posting my 2023 goals in the next day or two. 

Blessings, Dawn